Found in You(30)

He nodded once, immediately understanding. “His fiancée.”

“Yeah. I joined her Pilates class and became buddy-buddy with her. So she started inviting me out with her and her friends. Eventually I ended up at a party that Paul was at too. He was livid. And he had to decide if he wanted to ignore it or report me. If he reported me, Melissa would find out about the one-night. I wouldn’t leave things alone, so he reported it. And she broke things off.”

“He deserved that.”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t so sure. Yes, he’d cheated on his fiancée, but that didn’t make up for my role in things.

“He deserved worse in my book.” Though Hudson was guarding his reaction to my story, his casual crumbs of support in my favor helped put me at ease. “And Paul’s the only one this happened with?”

No. Not even close. “He was the only one who went to the police.”

“I see.” Hudson was quiet for a handful of seconds, absorbing. Finally, he furrowed his brow, and looked me eye-to-eye. “Why would you think that this would change how I feel about you?”

“Are you kidding? Aren’t you worried I’ll become that hung up on you?”

“I’m hoping you become that hung up on me.” He draped his arm around my shoulder. “Paul was a f*cking * who didn’t realize what he had in front of him. I do. Get hung up on me.”

“I am hung up on you!” I turned to kiss his shoulder. “But careful what you wish for. If I go crazy on you, you’ll want me gone.”

He turned his cheek to nuzzle against the top of my head. “I’d never drive you away. Not on purpose.”

It was sweet—being held and told that I was wanted. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Yet, I still felt Hudson didn’t understand the severity of the things I’d done.

I sat forward and turned my entire body to face him, pulling my legs underneath me. “But what if I started to doubt you? That’s happened before, too. Where I didn’t trust anything my boyfriend said to me, no matter how innocent they were. And then I snooped and invaded privacy and people got hurt.”

“Then I simply have to make sure that you never have any reason to doubt me.” He swept his hand out in front of him. “Snoop away. I have nothing to hide from you here.”

And there was my ticket back to where we’d started the conversation. “You’re hiding your past.”

He groaned. “I’m not hiding my past. There’s simply nothing worth talking about. It’s ugly. Why would you want to focus on the bad things?”

“It’s not focusing; it’s sharing and then moving on.”

He shook his head.

“I told you mine. That’s not fair.”

This time I got a steady glare.

“Come on. Anything. One thing.” I felt desperate. Opening up had been hard, and I wasn’t even getting the reward that I’d counted on.

I stared at him with wide, pleading eyes.

“One thing and you’ll leave it alone?”

I nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay, one thing.” He sighed. “It was a game. Always a game. And my favorite was the same one I played on Celia. Make a woman fall for me, and when she did, I was done.” He paused, and for half a second I feared that was all he was going to say.

But then he went on, his eyes glossy with memory. “There was one time, though, I wanted to see if I could make someone fall for someone else, someone they had no interest in. I knew this guy, Owen, who was a real ass. A complete man-whore. And this woman, Andrea—a girl, really. She was in my tennis club my second year of college. Very shy, simple, homely. I discovered she had a thing for me. Having a thing for me was very dangerous.” He stared pointedly at me. “Still is.”